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A breakthrough has been made in the development of clean hydrogen power, scientists claim.

At the moment, while hydrogen fuel is appealing, the production of hydrogen is incredible difficult - requiring huge amounts of energy.

But the researchers say they have made a new material that can generate hydrogen from water, meaning it is less reliant on fossil fuels.

Hydrogen-fuel is appealing for use in cars like the Vauxhall Zafira minivan pictured, but producing hydrogen requires huge amounts of energy. With the new breakthrough, it could be possible to make it more easily

Researchers at the University of Bath and Yale University are responsible for the invention.

It uses a newly designed molecular catalyst to split water in an electrolyser and create clean and storable hydrogen fuel. 

The team are now in discussions with a number of energy companies about utilising this technology on a large scale and hope the breakthrough marks the start of contributing to providing the world with more sustainable fuels.

As regulations tighten on the use of fossil fuels and their emissions, there is a growing focus on the need for cost effective and efficient ways of creating energy carriers from renewable sources.

Solar power is thought to be able to provide up to four per cent of the UK's electricity by the end of the decade.

However, while the price of photovoltaic technology has dramatically decreased in recent years as demand has risen, solar energy is problematic as it is intermittent, meaning electricity is only created when it is light.

One use of the newly developed catalyst could be to store the energy produced by solar power by using the electricity to produce hydrogen which can then be used on demand, regardless of the time of day.

The research has been led by Dr Ulrich Hintermair, a Whorrod research fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies at the University of Bath.

Solar power is thought to be able to provide up to four per cent of the UK's electricity by the end of the decade (Wymeswold Solar Farm in Leicestershire, UK shown), but storing it is difficult. This new technology could store energy as hydrogen, which can then be used on demand

'Hydrogen is a fantastically versatile and environmentally friendly fuel, however, hydrogen-powered applications are only as "green" as the hydrogen on which they run,' he said.

'Currently, over 90 per cent is derived from fossil fuels. If we want to bring about a clean hydrogen economy we must first generate clean hydrogen.

'This new molecular catalyst will hopefully play a large role in helping create hydrogen from renewable energy sources such as solar power.

'We are also interested in applying this technology to other forms of renewable energy such as tidal, wind and wave power.'

Professor Matthew Davidson, head of the department of chemistry, added: 'Splitting water into its constituent parts is deceptively simple chemistry, but doing it in a sustainable way is one of the holy grails of chemistry because it is the key step in the goal of artificial photosynthesis.

'[Dr Hintermair's] results are extremely exciting because of their potential for practical application.'